


The Litany of Dreams

by yu_sigao



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Child Murder, Codependency, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Moral Ambiguity, Nuclear Warfare, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Terminal Illnesses, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:01:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yu_sigao/pseuds/yu_sigao
Summary: When the Cold War ends in a nuclear showdown that leaves most of humanity dead or driven underground, Ivan and Amelia find themselves sharing a bunker and wondering what it means to be human.
Relationships: America/Russia (Hetalia)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	The Litany of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction may be deeply disturbing, upsetting or unsettling to read. Please heed the tags and warnings carefully.
> 
> It depicts an unhealthy relationship that is not meant to be ideal, and characters performing morally grey actions.
> 
> Special caution goes to how the descriptions of starvation may trigger those with eating disorders. Please take care when reading this.
> 
> I don't condone what is depicted.
> 
> This was inspired by the Siken poem, "Snow and Dirty Rain," but is not necessary to understand this story. However, I do recommend you read it once before reading this fanfiction, and once more when you've finished. The title of this fanfiction is taken from a line in that poem.
> 
> This is what I think the litany of dreams he was talking about looks like.

“We've read the back of the book, we know what's going to happen. The fields burned, the land destroyed, the lovers left broken in the brown dirt. And then it's gone. Makes you sad. All your friends are gone. Goodbye. Goodbye. No more tears. I would like to meet you all in Heaven. But there's a litany of dreams that happens somewhere in the middle.” - Richard Siken.

* * *

_January, 1999._

You should be playing now in the snow. You should be fawning over your Christmas present, before the novelty wears off, and you throw it in the trash, guiltily, or give it to charity, or save it for next Christmas when you’ll repackage it and pawn it off to someone else.

Under Siberia, there lied the girl. The boy was in America. “Keep the male,” they said. “We need him to fight, but protect the female. Hide her in the enemy heartland where no one could ever guess.” And so Alfred Fitzgerald Jones, Mr. United States, was still fighting on the front in Washington, provided he was even alive. And Amelia Eleanor Jones, Miss America, was here.

Things echoed loudly in this metal box they called a bunker. The bullet ricocheted off the ground as the blood began to pool around the guard’s head. She had done it while he was sleeping. He slept a lot. So did the other guard, before he died “naturally” of radiation poisoning. It was a torturous death, so this was for this guard’s own good, she decided to herself. Amelia was restless. She could not sleep.

The door creaked. The faint shadow of a man much larger than her emerged from behind and she instantly recognised who it was. Aiming her gun, she shot. The man jumped to the side as the bullet barely missed his shoulder, and implanted itself into the wall behind the door.

It was Ivan Braginsky, the embodiment of the Soviet Union. Technically, he was just Russia, but he answered for them anyway. Mr. Braginsky was an intimidating man, at around two metres tall, broad shouldered, and built like a tank. His pale skin and platinum hair meant you could lose him in a snowstorm, and judging by the fact there were no guards with him, that is probably what happened. He was in that tacky Soviet ceremonial greatcoat, medals and all. It was splattered with blood. He directed his grey-violet eyes down at the corpse of the American guard.

“That wasn’t very smart,” said Ivan in his thick Russian accent. “Your president gave them to look after you-”

“I don’t need _mortals_ to keep me alive,” hissed Amelia.

“And to keep you sane,” Ivan continued. “How many weeks has it been? And you’ve already killed the last one?”

“He annoyed me!” she lied.

“America, your tendency to escalate violence is what led to this situation in the first place.”

“Oh, that’s real fucking rich coming from you, you commie bitch!”

“Then again, clearly they aren’t that smart, if they decided to hide you in my territory.”

They were both wordless for a while, neither making a move. Nothing could be heard except for Amelia’s furious breathing. Then Ivan took a step closer. Amelia kept the gun aimed at his chest, but as if confident she wouldn’t really do it, he pressed his body against the barrel and tugged the gun out of her hand.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t want to fight.”

There wasn’t anything left to fight over.

“You’re not going to kill me? I’m trying to kill you right now.”

“We have already killed each other,” Ivan said. After another silence, he added, “Let’s truce, between us as people. Whatever happens outside is out of our control now.”

 _Let us become monsters and destroy the world together, after I destroy you first_ , spoke a venomous instinct inside of him.

“Until?” she asked, snapping him back to reality.

“Until what, Amelia?”

“Fine, I’ll truce,” she answered, “Until this nuclear winter is over.”

Ivan bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from saying it might never be over. At least, when they could be here to see it. He grimaced and redirected his attention back to the dead body.

“Seriously, that was such a bad idea.”

“Mhm. Says the man with blood on his uniform.”

“Hey, I was fighting a dog for scraps! This is dog’s blood, not humans!” Ivan huffed defensively.

“That’s worse! That’s literally worse!” Amelia cried.

Ivan groaned, covering his face with his hand. “Listen, we need to make a trip to the surface to dispose of him.”

“Why can’t we leave him here to attract rats so we can eat them?” Amelia suggested with a cheeky smile.

“And also attract the Black Death? Christ, Amelia, and you think fighting dogs is bad!”

* * *

Ivan returned a few hours later, having disposed of the body. He also returned clutching his chest.

Amelia raised her brow, a drink in her hand. “What are you hiding under there, commie?”

He approached the shelf, and unveiled a tiny, silver metal radio from his coat. Pressing a combination of buttons at the top, it blared to life, blurting the news in Russian.

“It is a radio. Necessary for this time.”

“Ew, why is your radio in Russian?” Amelia said as she took a swig of her Budweiser. “This is gay, make it speak American.”

“English,” Ivan corrected with a hiss, as he fiddled with the dial.

And so they listened. The days passed, and all they did was wake up, eat, listen to the radio, bathe, and go back to sleep. Conversation was terse between them. Being sworn enemies for so long, there were things better left unsaid. Amelia didn’t know when the sun set or when it rose anymore. The droning of the radio and it’s statistics on the numbers dead and suffering had replaced sunlight as her measure of time.

“Hey commie,” she said one day, bleary eyed, shoveling a spoonful of the disgusting MRE into her mouth. “How many day’s it been?”

“It’s been six weeks, Elya,” Ivan replied.

“Elya?

“It is Russian style nickname,” Ivan explained. “Take it as you will.”

She shrugged and finished the oversalted slop that could hardly be called food, before punching Ivan in the arm when he tried to take a shower before her.

They were countries. They shouldn't need food and sleep anyhow. Except now, they seemed to. Ivan and Amelia had felt hunger and tiredness before, of course, but it never actually impeded them. It was simply something nice to have, some food and some sleep. But now the hunger felt as if it was burning a hole inside of them. And if any of them had their sleep interrupted by nightmares or by simple anxiousness, they would be irritable the next day, less able to focus, less able to remember.

Still, they had to show restraint and eat as little as possible to keep their supplies going. They knew it was best if they exercised, but it also meant they'd spend more energy and have to eat more, so they didn't. They were countries. It should have been fine.

“It’s a bit loose,” Ivan said as Amelia slipped her bra over her breasts. He was sitting at the table, leaning his face against a hand, facing her.

She stood completely still, half naked and fresh from the shower, and glared at him. “Excuse me? No looking.”

Ivan turned his head, keeping his expression neutral. Amelia blushed. “Fucking commie pervert,” she muttered as she pulled her top over herself.

He was right. Her bra was a bit loose, as was the rest of her clothing. Ivan’s coat wasn’t fitting him as well as it once had either. Clearly, the rations weren’t cutting it. It was time to go to the surface.

* * *

Standing at the door made her feel like she was Pandora opening the box that unleashed tragedy upon this world, except she was inside the box, and letting the outside in. Unless she was the tragedy, but the tragedy had already happened before she turned the knob. Then who was Pandora? Maybe she was Hope, Amelia decided, yes, that was better. She was both Hope coming to save others and be a hero, as she swung the door open.

The air in these tunnels were heavy, and their footsteps clunked against the hard metal, in a way that meant Amelia knew their joints would be sore tomorrow. The trek to the surface was a long one, probably designed to dissuade her excitable self from going there once the radiation set in. Building this bunker had been hard to do under the Soviets’ noses, but somehow they managed to pull it off.

“You are wondering how we did not notice,” Ivan said, as if reading her mind. “ _They_ did not notice, but I did. Have you forgotten this is my body? Of course I felt it being built inside of me, like a permanent splinter I couldn’t get rid of.”

“Sorry,” she whispered disingenuously, hurrying to walk in front of him so they wouldn’t have to speak.

Once they reached the surface, it felt as if a countdown had begun. Every second they spent out here was damage to their bodies. No matter how tight their mask and goggles, and how much they scrubbed themselves after, the radiation would seep in and remain. Even if they were immortal, the effects of cumulative exposure would be unpleasant, to say the least.

They walked for a long time. Only the crunch of snow beneath their boots could be heard. There was no grass or plant life peeking through the snow. Occasionally they passed an animal, a bear or a wolf, and Amelia started towards it, but Ivan laid a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back, saying it had signs it died of disease or irradiation and could not be eaten, and so they kept walking.

They came upon a small house, cottagelike, and knocked on the door. No answer came, but the door was unlocked, so Ivan opened it. They were greeted with two corpses, a male atop a female, the blood spreading from their chests. Evidently the man died trying to protect the woman, his wife, most likely. Ivan kept his face stern and walked past them, making sure not to tread on their dead bodies. He turned to see Amelia still standing in the hallway, wide eyed with shock, and frowned.

“Close the door,” he said numbly.

She did, and followed him inside. As she walked by the bodies, she noticed the blood still looked fresh, a ripe red that had not sunk into the wooden floor. At the centre of the house, the embers in the fireplace were still burning. Amelia looked down, and noticed the wooden tiles here were slightly raised and misshapen. She looked up at Ivan, who was in the kitchen, raiding the couples’ pantry mercilessly.

“Nothing here, someone’s evidently already been here,” he said, returning her gaze. “What are you looking at?”

She knelt down as Ivan approached, and pulled the tiles up. There was a staircase leading to the basement. Slowly descending upon the rickety, creaky thing, Amelia turned around to see three children: two girls and one boy, the oldest female no older than five, sitting with her eyes unfocused on the ground, and the other two mere babies in their cradle.

“Hey, little girl,” Amelia said quietly in the most comforting tone she could manage, with a sheepish wave. “What’s your name?”

The girl did not reply.

Ivan came down and crouched to the girl’s level, and spoke a few words in Russian, which Amelia could not understand. She still remained silent.

“Is she dead?” Amelia asked.

Ivan turned around with a distraught look; the most feeling she had seen him display since they left. He turned back and removed the glove from his right hand, and felt her forehead and cheeks, before checking the pulse at her wrists. Moving closer, Amelia noticed the girl was indeed tracking them with her eyes, but wore an expression of utter apathy on her face. Her skin was grey and her hair was thin, so much so the scalp could be seen through the part of her bangs. The skin around her eyes were dark and her cheeks were hollow.

“She’s not dead,” he replied in English, “But she’s sick. Probably not had enough to eat.”

“And the babies?”

Ivan paused for a while. “They’re dead.”

Amelia gulped, blinking away the tears welling in her eyes. “Take the girl with us.”

“Amelia, listen to me,” Ivan began with a sigh, grabbing her by both shoulders. “I know what starvation looks like when someone can’t be saved.”

Amelia gasped, and was about to yell before he cupped his hand over her mouth and slammed her against the wall. The thud got the child to turn her head and face them.

“Elya, we wouldn’t be able to do help her,” he continued. “She needs a hospital. There isn’t an operational one for miles. And even if we found one, the beds are at capacity and the hallways are full of people dying. No one and nothing can help her.”

He slowly removed his hand from Amelia’s face, who breathed hard for a few moments.

“What do you suggest we do?”

“Reunite her with her parents.”

Ivan turned to the girl, who looked more alert now, and spoke to her.

“We’re here to help you,” he said in Russian.

The girl shook her head. “I don’t want you. I want my mum and dad.”

“Your mum and dad are outside. We’ll take you to them. If they told you to hide here, it’s safe to come out now.”

He took her hand and dragged her upright. She took a step and fell back down immediately. Ivan picked her up with ease, and cradled her as he spoke in English to Amelia.

“Ready your gun.”

“Why me, commie?” she asked with a poisonous undertone.

“I’m holding her. Do you want her to see her parents as they are on Earth?”

Amelia stifled a groan, as she took her handgun from her holster. As Ivan walked up the stairs of the basement, she took aim at the child’s head, and shot.

* * *

They had spent the rest of the day in silence. They had not found any food, nor had they eaten their rations, and they went to bed with a pain in their stomachs. At night, Amelia woke to hear a strange sound. She turned to see Ivan (who slept on the ground while she took the bed), shivering. Was he cold? No, he was crying.

He was talking to himself. In Russian, of course, so she had no idea what he was saying. For a second she thought he’d gone mad, but then she realised he was praying. She didn’t know he was still religious after his recent history. But she did know exactly what he was praying about. At first, the anger rose in her throat, and she wanted to scream at him, and then hit him, for he had no right to feel guilty when he told her to shoot, but then she realised if anything, she should feel worse than him. _God, I wish he’d shut up_ , she thought. _Just shut up! I want to sleep._

 _Dear God, please forgive me_ , Ivan said. _I hope she’s in a better place._

* * *

No matter where that child was now, Ivan and Amelia were in a worse place, despite physically staying in the same spot. You could view it as punishment, but it was what was happening to everyone. At first, they killed cockroaches and rats as vermin that spoiled food, but after a few months, they were pleased to find one, for now they _were_ food. Lighting a fire in the bunker could only be done so frequently, due to the lack of ventilation, but it made spitroasted rats and fried insects a special treat.

“Elya,” Ivan said one day.

“What?” she replied bitterly.

“I get the sense you are dissatisfied or angry with me.”

“I’m not,” she lied.

“I’m not stupid. You aren’t thinking of leaving me, are you?”

“No.”

“Good!” Ivan said with a smile. “That would be in violation of our truce.”

“I thought it just meant we wouldn’t try to kill each other,” she stated, suspicious and puzzled.

“Well, I’d like to add an extra condition,” Ivan began. “Neither of us can leave the other or the other reserves the right to kill them. Deal?”

Amelia looked at him fiercely and shook his hand.

“Deal.”

* * *

_January, 2000._

The wounds on her arm stung in the shower. Amelia had a habit of digging her nails into her skin when nervous or stressed, which was often nowadays. But they usually healed in an instant. Now they took days, if not weeks. Was that normal? She didn’t know how fast healthy humans normally healed. She didn’t know if she was now human.

The soap was harsh and stripped her skin, but at least she had any at all. She did wonder where Ivan had gotten it from, as well a few other luxuries he seemed to bring, like coats, gloves without holes, fresh blankets. It was Ivan who made visits to the surface more often now, because his size meant he should to be able to withstand more radiation exposure than her, and because he had a nigh supernatural sense of where to hunt and forage and find supplies.

Outside, the American radio in English was blabbering on about the new year, not that there was much to celebrate or to look forward to. The US, the USSR, and the governments of everyone were dissolving into dust. Perhaps both were lost long ago, but now their cardiograms were about to resound a flatline, and still blood flowed from the national bodies of both. Still the warheads flew. Amelia was glad she could no longer feel the bombings, even if her disconnect from her nation implied it’s doom.

Amelia’s heart was still beating, no longer to the rhythm of Washington, but to the rise and fall of her chest. She stepped out of the shower, slowly so as not to slip. She was clumsier now. Lightheaded. Dizzy from the lack of sleep and food. She looked into the mirror as she dried her face with the tattered, threadbare towel. Her face looked dreadful. Pale, grey, and ghastly, with dark purple eyebags despite how much she ate and slept. Which was not a lot, but by heavens, she tried. She was sick often too. Even when she and Ivan hunted a bounty, they often got sick from eating later, no matter how well they cooked their meat. (She suspected they were sick from something else other than food poisoning.) Standing back, her form was concerning. Her hipbones and ribs were visible through her skin, her breasts shrunk and sagged, and her shoulders sharp and bony. As she donned her uniform, she noticed her entire body was now covered in lanugo, the fine hair that developed when one was cold and starving.

How disgusting, and yet when she stepped out of the bathroom-

“Dorogoy, you look cold, come here,” he said, as Ivan outsretched his arms and wrapped them around her shoulders.

“You still don’t mind that I am just skin and bones?” Amelia asked, resting her head against his chest.

“No, Elya, not at all.”

The towel was hung around her neck and she pulled away to dry her hair. She usually kept it at chin length, but had neglected to cut it for a while now. Taking dull and rusty scissors from the drawer, Amelia knelt in front of the mirror on her bed to cut her hair.

“What are you doing with that?” said Ivan, as he plucked the scissors out of her hand.

“Hey!” she whined.

“Don’t cut it, it looks so pretty!”

“Well, it’s _my_ hair!”

“Aww. It is. But it’s the closest thing to sunlight we get in this place,” Ivan said with a smooth smile.

 _Curse you, smooth commie bastard!_ she thought, as she watched him put the scissors away. Tugging at strands of her hair, it wasn’t the same vibrant golden blonde it once was, but dull and as if it was permanently full of ashen fallout. But if Ivan liked it, that was enough for her.

He was tuning the radio back to the Soviet channels now. She could understand some of their Russian speech, as Ivan had been slowly teaching her, but most of it obfuscated her. It was something about the new year, and the new millennium. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be close to Christmas for Ivan in usual circumstances too?

Someone, somewhere, was seeing the sky light up in many different colours right now. Just not due to fireworks. Someone, somewhere, was losing their hearing from the shockwave. Amelia closed her eyes and tried not to think about it.

“Elya, I have something to show you,” Ivan said. Amelia opened her eyes as he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. He draped his coat around her, and she pulled her arms through it’s sleeves, comically large on her. Ivan was a lot thinner now, his cheeks hollow, and hair sparser, but at least he had the height to fill his clothes out. Hastily shoving her feet into her boots, she stepped out of the bunker door that Ivan held open for her, and walked side by side with him to the surface.

Even through the scratched and cloudy goggles she wore with her gas mask, she could see that the sky was clear. It was azure blue, a miracle when both the atypical nuclear winter and typical Russian winter were occurring simultaneously. Her ankles began to hurt, as stomping through the snow required enormous strength that she had never noticed before. Now her boots were loose, no longer affixed around her calves, but she didn’t complain as Ivan led her to a rusted door. She pushed it open and walked down the stairway, which wasn’t dissimilar to the one leading to the bunker they lived in, except the air was more oppressive here, pungent with the scent of decay and death, thicker and hotter. She coughed. It wasn’t doing very well at keeping the fallout out either.

There was a muttering of human voices. The sound of a crowd. People! Amelia began to sprint towards it, leaving Ivan behind. _People! There were still people on this Earth!_ She thought the radio was lying when it said human civilisation still survived. She ran and turned a corner at the end, ripping off her mask and goggles, panting as she slowed into the humongous room of people inside.

There were children chasing each other in a game. Humans chatting with each other and stopping to scold their children for bumping into another person. Humans holding blankets and baskets of goods. Humans in the corners, giving water to the elderly and obviously ill or distressed. She could half understand the Russian that was said.

_I have no money or gold but I’ll give you three of these ammunition magazines if you could give me a blanket… Of course, I’ll even give you two for helping me with the snow last month… Oh, the radio’s broken? Take it to Dima, he’ll know how to fix it… I am no doctor, but I was a student, I will try to help you… Take this to your mama, and say she doesn’t need to pay me back._

_So this is where Ivan got all those nice things from_ , she thought as she stood by the door, Ivan catching up behind her.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ivan said. “There is Hope in this world after all.”

Amelia did not move. She thought of the blood running down Ivan’s sleeve when she had shot the little girl almost a year ago, how they had dug her grave and that of her parents on an empty stomach, had their fingers frostnipped doing so, and been unable to bury them quite deep enough, but hoped the snow would finish their work.

It’s not as if it was the first time she had ever killed someone, including an innocent person. She knew very keenly the way of this world. But now she knew it was not how humans dealt with a crisis in the absence of other things. Their first impulse isn’t to steal from and kill others. Humans weren’t perfect. She knew that well too. But what drove them to irrational self destruction?

It was her. Nation. Empire. Immortal. A Simultaneous god of history and useless mascot that humans prayed to as if she could really do anything. A ship mistaken for the sailor, enslaved by the captain who believes they’re a stowaway in the hull. And when she sinks, they’ll blame it all on her.

She really was the tragedy in Pandora’s box.

“Pick something, dear, I wanted to get a gift for you.”

She turned back around and walked back to the exit.

“Amelia? Amelia!” Ivan called, running after her. “The sky is rarely this clear; we might never get this chance again! What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong.”

She ran all the way back to their bunker, the cold air burning the inside of her sinus, throat, and chest, legs sore and shaky from overexertion. Ivan tailed her and shut the door behind them.

“Elya, what’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with me!” she began, “What’s the matter with you!”

“You caused this!” she shouted, outstretching her arms. “All of this! This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t decided to drop a nuclear bomb on us!”

“Elya, that is years past!”

“And look, we’re still living with the consequences!”

“I had no say in the matter,” Ivan answered, dropping his voice dangerously low. “You know that. I was just a slave to my government and another pretty face on their propaganda posters, because that’s what you were too. You think I didn’t know of the consequences and somehow approved of all this? What could I have done?”

“It’s still-,” she sniffled, unwilling to admit defeat. “It’s still all your fault, commie!”

“Well, okay, Little Miss Eagleland, if you hadn’t retaliated then-”

“What were we meant to do, let y’all walk all over me?”

“It was out of proportion! Your counterattack destroyed far more cities and civilian lives than our initial operation.”

“The idea was to stop you from being able to fight.”

“And that didn’t work out, did it!” Ivan yelled. “Because we just sent more back! And then you sent more back! We sent bombs when we should have sent letters instead. By God, Elya, it’s everyone’s fault! And if we all got what we deserved, we would both be dead!”

She burst into tears. Not to be manipulative, but because he was right and there was nothing more she could say. _If we all got what we deserved, we would both be dead._ That was the terrible truth of it. For a while, Ivan did nothing, perhaps to let it sink in, but when he couldn’t bear it anymore, he moved in to embrace her and brought them both to their knees. His own eyes were red and wet with tears. He ran his fingers through her hair. They had forgotten to turn the radio off before leaving, and it was now playing a sombre tune that Ivan was humming.

After a while, Amelia spoke.

“Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“How come you don’t have a patronymic name that other Russians do?”

“Because I have no father. None of us have parents. We’re countries.”

“I had multiple mothers and fathers.”

“Oh. Really?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

“The many Native North Americas. I was taken away from them to live with England when we were colonised.”

Ivan blinked and could think of no way to respond to that. He looked down and said, “I don’t wish I had parents. However, I do wish I could be a parent. But as you know, the biology of us immortal nations is infertile as we have no need to reproduce, and even if we could, it would create… Complications. Unless we are mortal humans now.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, commie, but I think radiation exposure would fuck that up,” Amelia replied bluntly.

“Oh,” he said, disheartened.

“Who the hell did you want to have kids with in the middle of an apocalypse anyway?”

Ivan blushed bright red. “Uhh…”

Amelia slapped him across the cheek. “Fat chance. It’s the apocalypse. Besides, it’s impossible on my end.”

“How do you know that?”

“Don’t want to discuss it with a guy. But I’ve never bled and haven’t started bleeding. Nothing’s happened in the time we’ve been together either, so I don’t think my insides work.”

* * *

He did not want to waste the clear, lovely sky that day. So at night, they sat on the surface, around a campfire over which they were roasting their favourite treats: rats and crickets. It was a full moon and the clarity of the atmosphere meant all the stars could be seen.

“Hey commie,” Amelia asked again. “What’d you think when we got to the moon before you?”

“I was happy,” he said.

“…What?”

“I was happy because I was amazed at how far humans had come as a species. I remember the Medieval times, Elya,” he elaborated as he ironically bit into a slightly charred rat.

“But we were racing! Weren’t you upset that we beat you?”

“We were racing? Well, you asked what Ivan Braginsky thought, not what Mr. Soviet Union thought.”

As he finished the rat, Ivan continued. “I wanted to be a cosmonaut, but they wouldn’t let me because I was too tall and the gravity would do weird things to my body.”

Amelia began to laugh.

“Hey, it’s not funny!” he shouted. “I was really upset!”

“Well,” she said between chuckles, “You are freakishly tall!”

Ivan scowled as he picked scraps of meat off the bones.

“Tell you what, commie,” she said, “When we perfect space travel and make it safe for giants like you, and make it available through the powers of capitalism, I’ll take you to the moon. You can bring Anastasia too. What happened to her anyway?”

“My female counterpart… I do not know. We ran in separate directions so if one was captured, the other would still be free.”

“What about the other Soviet states?”

“I locked them in the bunker meant for me. It was my first act of free will, as a human, in a very long time. It is the least I could do.”

“Oh,” Amelia said, crunching on a cricket. They ate the rest of their dinner in silence before the wind chilled and called them to move back inside.

* * *

The sky was never that clear again. It darkened to the same old radiation grey. The community of humans Ivan had been getting supplies from disappeared. One wishes they had simply moved elsewhere, but they probably perished of disease, starvation, infighting, or the bombings. And with that, the living conditions of our couple suffered. Their rations were almost out. Expenses were cut to a minimum. But this meant they had less energy to go to the surface to hunt, of which it was becoming necessary to do so more frequently. And whenever they did hunt, their food was long dead and rotten, and sure to disagree with them later. The thread of their clothes broke, as did their masks and gloves and the soles of their boots. Amelia had almost lost a toe to frostbite, and Ivan a finger.

For months beforehand, Ivan had been the one to go to the surface most often, on the assumption his larger body size would mean he could handle more radiation. He was now clearly paying for it as he became the more frail of the two. All his muscle mass and supple tissue had disappeared, his lips and nails were blue, and he did not recover between bouts of food poisoning or respiratory illness. When Amelia felt his cheeks, they were hard and she could only feel the bone. He lost his appetite and could hardly eat despite her screaming at him to, and when he did, he couldn’t keep it down.

And still he smiled. Spoke of a day the smoke would clear and the sky would be blue again and they could go outside without risking death. Who knew if he believed it or not. Amelia sure didn’t.

“Commie, I’m gonna kill myself,” she said one day, digging the packet of expired ricin from the bottom of her drawer. “Wanna join?”

“No,” Ivan said, before coughing into his handkerchief. She could see it was stained with blood. “Elya, come here.”

“Yeah?” she asked, leaning by the bed, which she now let Ivan take while she slept on the floor.

“We mustn’t kill ourselves. After all we have taken from others to survive, it would be unforgivable for us to do so now. We are monsters who have destroyed the world together but I will not aid in destroying you too.”

“Okay,” Amelia nodded. “Then tell me this will end soon so I have something to live for.”

“Elya, we have each other.”

“Fine, we have each other.”

“I wouldn’t mind being part of the millions dead unless you were still alive.”

She put the ricin tablets away.

“You promise me you won’t kill yourself if I die before you, Elya,” Ivan said as she closed the drawer.

“But you just said we are living for each other.”

“Live for our memories of each other too. Even if we are physically separated, I will still be with you.”

“What makes you so certain I will outlive you?” she asked.

“I didn’t say that. I am just saying _if_ it happens.”

Over the next few days, Ivan’s condition deteriorated. He coughed and vomited massive amounts of blood. His breathing was laboured. He was constantly cold and shivering, and Amelia huddled beside him in bed in a futile attempt to transfer body heat even though she was much smaller. She wasn’t scared of getting sick from him.

She stroked his cheek. A raised cut upon it seemed to be red and pus filled and likely infected, but there was nothing they could use to treat it with. His lips were dry and split but still she leaned in to kiss him.

“What’s wrong?” Ivan asked. “You are not usually this affectionate.”

“You’re worse than usual. I’m worried,” she answered.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I can’t help it.”

He enveloped her hand in his and kissed it.

“Think of what you would do if this situation disappeared tomorrow.”

“I don’t know. I’d marry you if I could. We’d live together. Breathe fresh air. Eat normal food. Adopt a few kids if my insides still don’t work. I just want to be human, Ivan. But not- Not like this,” Amelia said, shaking her head as she began to cry. “How will we live with ourselves and do all that while remembering what we’ve done?”

“You are human. We both are humans. I believe you’re strong enough to do it.”

They stayed silent for a while.

“I’m going to sleep,” said Ivan. “Have a happy dream, okay?”

Amelia tried to close her eyes and sleep beside him, but she couldn’t. She felt his pulse slowing down in a way it never had before.

“Ivan?”

No response.

“Ivan, please wake up.”

She gently shook him.

“No, no, no, you’re not doing this to me, Ivan, please, please don’t leave me alone.”

She hyperventilated, sitting up and feeling dizzy and nauseous, getting on top of his body and gazing down at his face, refusing to believe it.

“I’m sorry,” Amelia said between tears. “I’m so sorry, Ivan. Please don’t go. You told me- You wouldn’t- How am I supposed to kill you now? I’m sorry, Ivan, I love you, I’m scared of being alone.”

* * *

Hope died in Pandora’s box that night.


End file.
